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| Afghanistan |
| Afghan Forces Claim Victory in Major Taliban Battle |
| 2014-06-29 |
| [AnNahar] Afghan cops on Saturday claimed victory against a Taliban offensive in the country's volatile Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province after days of fighting seen as a test for the country's security forces as NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization.... -led troops pull out. The Taliban's onslaught in Helmand began on June 19 when at least 800 fighters launched the offensive centered in Sangin district, a hotbed of opium production and intense fighting during the 13-year insurgency. "The Taliban offensive has been beaten back, their plan to gain territory and capture districts have totally been foiled. Some 260 of the snuffies have been killed", Afghanistan's interior ministry front man Sediq Sediqqi told Agence La Belle France Presse. Sediqqi also said that 28 Afghan forces were killed in the fighting. The Taliban's drive into Helmand province is seen as the biggest test of Afghan cops so far in the current summer "fighting season" and comes as the government is locked in a stalemate over the presidential election. Government forces had started a push to retake the areas they had lost in the early days of the offensive, Seddiqi said, but their progress had been "slow" as the areas that the Taliban had been pushed out of were "heavily mined". "Just yesterday police defused 60 landmines in Sangin district," Sediqqi said. A high-ranking Afghan army corps officer in Helmand said earlier in the day that the faceless myrmidons had also been beaten back in three other districts -- Kajaki, Nawzad and Musa Qala -- which they had attacked at the beginning of their offensive. A Taliban front man, Yousuf Ahmadi, rejected the claim made by the government, saying that fighting was still ongoing in Sangin. "Our mujahideen have attacked several security checkpoints in Sangin district," Ahmadi told AFP. The battle in Helmand comes as NATO's combat mission winds down by the end of this year, and Afghanistan's army and police are fighting against the Taliban with decreasing support from the U.S.-led military coalition. The festivities in Helmand have also raised fears of instability How could you tell? as Afghan politics is stuck in a stalemate over the ongoing election vote count, with presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah ... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun... alleging massive fraud by his rival Ashraf Ghani. On Wednesday U.N. special envoy for Afghanistan Jan Kubis warned of "rising tensions following the second round (of elections), including increasing ethnic overtones". A contested election result "might lead to protracted confrontation with a danger of a slide into violence", he added. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #1 "Danger of a slide into violence"? Geez fella look around didn't Afghanistan sorta slide into violence about 1,250 years ago? |
| Posted by: Bill Clinton 2014-06-29 16:35 |